


I Like You Enough to Stay

by unfolded73



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Canon Queer Relationship, Drunk Texting, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Flirting, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, M/M, Mutual Pining, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:34:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21735352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: Canon divergence where David didn’t pick up on enough of the cues to kiss Patrick the night of his birthday. Now they’ve been in limbo for months, the sexual tension is thick, and Stevie and Alexis are sick of it.
Relationships: Alexis Rose & David Rose, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & Alexis Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose, Stevie Budd & Patrick Brewer
Comments: 151
Kudos: 639
Collections: Schitt's Creek Open Fic Night 2.0





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [olivebranchesandredwine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivebranchesandredwine/gifts).



> **Open Fic Night Prompt:** Fake dating AU, with mutual pining and smutty resolution. The smuttier the better. Bonus points for flirty texting, drunken flirting, and Stevie and/or Alexis helping them get together.
> 
> Edited to add, now that I've been unmasked: Thanks to j-philly-b for the beta, and for your suggestions that upped the pining quotient on this fic.

**_Alexis_ **

Alexis Rose sat on the counter by the cash register in Rose Apothecary, trying to read her marketing textbook and not listen in on the conversation that her brother was currently having with his business partner. 

“So, I think we should make the open mic night a regular thing,” Patrick was saying.

“Absolutely not,” David said.

“David, it was a huge success! We sold a lot of merchandise last night.”

“People also drank a lot of our wine,” David said.

“Yeah, but on balance we still made a tidy profit. The investment in wine was worth it.” Patrick leaned against one of the wall shelves and crossed his arms. “What do you think, weekly?”

“Oh, hell no.” David put his hands over his mouth and paced in a circle, clearly in some distress. “Maybe quarterly.”

“Monthly,” Patrick offered, and Alexis looked up just in time to see him wink at her while David was contorting his body, his face aimed at the ceiling and his eyes tightly closed. Alexis grinned. Monthly was probably what Patrick had wanted from the beginning.

“Fine. Monthly.” David reached over and started adjusting the body milk bottles minutely so that the labels all faced the same way, even though the labels already faced the same way. “Are you going to sing every time?”

“Did you not like my song last night, David?” Patrick wore a smile that said he wasn’t really worried about the answer to that question.

“I thought the song was an interesting choice, and that you have a very nice voice,” David said, his own voice dropping down so softly that Alexis had a hard time hearing him by the end of the sentence.

“Well, thank you. And yes, I thought I might sing a song every time,” Patrick said. As Alexis watched, Patrick swayed a little bit, moving closer to David like he was being pulled into his orbit. Maybe this was it, Alexis thought, resisting the urge to clutch her hands together with glee. Maybe this would be the moment that David would kiss Patrick. Or Patrick would kiss David. Because someone definitely needed to kiss someone.

David and Patrick had what almost passed for a date a few months ago on David’s birthday, but when she talked to David about it the next morning, he’d told her with poorly-hidden disappointment that nothing had happened. David had said that as they sat in the car outside the motel, when Patrick was dropping David off, he’d thought for a second that maybe Patrick wanted to kiss him. But David had still felt uncertain if Patrick liked him, uncertain even what his sexual preferences were, so in the end David had said goodnight and gotten out of the car. Since then, their working relationship seemed to have been a lot more of the same, and Alexis could tell both of them were close to exploding. 

A customer came in and Patrick went over to help her. Shaking her head in disappointment, Alexis turned back to her textbook. 

David walked behind the counter and poked Alexis in the back. “Can you get your ass off the counter where we ring up people’s purchases, please?”

“Stop, David,” she said, but she did as he asked, scooting off the counter and smoothing out the back of her dress as she clutched her book to her chest.

“What are you even doing here?” David asked her.

“If I go home to try to study, Dad is going to get all up in my business. He’s convinced that if I give him a chance to tutor me, I’ll get an ‘A’ in this marketing class.”

“Well, _that’s_ never going to happen.”

“Hmpf!” Alexis flipped her hair over one shoulder. “I’m doing really well at college, not that you care.” She turned and looked over at where Patrick was helping the customer with some bath products. “At least Patrick asks about my classes sometimes.”

“That’s because Patrick is a nice person, and he’s very convincing at feigning interest in other people’s lives,” David said.

The customer came over then and David started to ring up her purchases while Patrick moved behind David to go into the storeroom. Alexis could see David react to Patrick’s physical proximity as he brushed by, a little intake of breath and his fingers pausing on the keys like he forgot for a couple of seconds what he was doing. Then Patrick disappeared behind the curtain and David recovered, bagging the woman’s items in a tote and giving her a smiling entreaty to come back soon.

“Okay, well,” Patrick said, reemerging from the back with a large duffel bag. “I’ve gotta get to baseball practice; are you good closing up?”

“Oh, is it Tuesday?” David whined.

“Yes, it’s Tuesday,” Patrick replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Uh huh,” David said, going back over to resume his habitual straightening of the bottles. “Byeee.”

Once Patrick was gone, Alexis jumped back up onto the counter. “Oh. My. Fucking. God. When are you guys going to bang it out already?”

David gave her a withering glance. “Eat razor blades, please.”

“David, you just need to tell him how you feel.” She picked up one of the lip balms from next to the cash register, but before she could open it, David hurried over and swiped it out of her hand, smoothly putting it back where it came from.

“Yeah, that’ll go great. I’ll say, ‘Hey Patrick, I’d really like to make out with you in the storeroom,’ and he’ll say, ‘That’s very flattering, David, but I only like girls,’ or ‘That’s very flattering, David, but I’m not really interested in your whole…’ — he shimmied his body in a weird way — ‘vibe,’ or ‘That’s very flattering, David—’”

“Oh my god, David—”

“And then our whole business relationship will be fucked up. He’ll be weirded out and uncomfortable and he’ll leave me with this store, which I _definitely_ can’t run without him—”

“Okay, okay,” Alexis said, huffing with annoyance. “Forget I said anything.” She combed her fingers through her hair, adjusting the way it fell on her shoulders. “What did he sing last night, anyway?”

David rolled his eyes. “An acoustic version of ‘Hey Ya’ by Outkast.”

“No.” Her mouth dropped open.

“Yes.” He winced. “Actually, it was surprisingly good. I liked it, but never tell him I said that.”

“God, you must really be in love with him, David.”

“Fuck off, Alexis.”

_______________

**_Stevie_ **

Stevie Budd stopped by Rose Apothecary at six o’clock on Friday for their regular end-of-the-week bottle of wine. Most of the time, after Patrick and David had closed up for the night on Friday, they were willing to open a bottle and share it with her. If it had been a particularly profitable week, David might even get one of the reserve bottles out of the back of the store. 

“Well, you never met Mutt Schitt,” David was saying, gesturing with a corkscrew in his hand. The bottle that was already on the counter looked like one of the really good ones, and Stevie grinned. She locked the door behind her. The sign had already been turned over to closed.

Patrick made a face. “Is that really his name?”

“Oh, it is. Anyway, he was kind of a dummy, but he was a hot dummy. His body was, like, carved from marble.”

“And when did you see his body?” Patrick asked suggestively.

“Ew, I do not partake in Alexis’ sloppy seconds,” David said with a full body shudder. Stevie reached over and took the corkscrew out of his hand and picked up the bottle to open it, trying not to interrupt the flow of this rather interesting conversation that David and Patrick were having.

“Oh? Did he have a sloppy mouth?” Patrick asked, smirking like they were sharing an inside joke.

It must have been an inside joke, because David laughed. Giggled, almost. “The sloppiest.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Stevie finally asked because she had to know. The two of them looked over in surprise, like they hadn’t even realized she was there. She pulled the cork out of the wine and Patrick took the bottle from her, pouring generous helpings of wine into three glasses.

“We were discussing the hottest people in Schitt’s Creek,” David said, turning and giving her an elevated eyebrow like he’d learned some interesting things that he wanted to tell her about as soon as they were alone.

“Was there a separate list for guys and girls, or like, one big master list?” Stevie asked, taking a sip of her wine. There was a bitterness to it that made the edges of her tongue curl, and she swirled her glass as best she could (the glass wasn’t really ideal for that), trying to get the wine to breathe.

“We were mainly talking about guys,” David said, giving her that look again. Now Stevie understood what he was telling her. Patrick had expressed some opinions that made David think he might like guys. Stevie grinned; that was promising, but it sure had taken long enough. Patrick was notoriously ambiguous about his sexual orientation. He never talked about past relationships, and as far as either David or Stevie knew, he’d never dated anyone in town. 

“Any interesting picks for the list?” Stevie asked, flopping down into a chair. “Did Jake come up?”

“Nope, disqualified because I’ve been there and done that,” David said. 

“So you were disqualified too, Stevie,” Patrick said. He rarely passed up an opportunity to tease David and Stevie about their brief fling.

“So who, then?”

David looked over at Patrick, waggling his eyebrows. “Patrick seemed rather taken with Ted.”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “I’m not taken with Ted, he’s just, you know. He goes to the gym.”

“He goes to the gym,” David repeated with a wink to Stevie. 

“You’d best keep your distance there, Patrick, unless you want Alexis to claw your eyes out,” Stevie said.

“Well, and also Ted’s straight,” David said, looking at Patrick and waiting for what he would say next.

If he was expecting Patrick to announce his own sexual orientation, David was disappointed. “What are you up to this weekend, Stevie?” Patrick asked.

David’s shoulders slumped, and then he felt around in his pockets. “Where did I leave my phone?”

“I saw it on the desk in the back,” Patrick said before taking a sip of his wine. David got up and walked into the storeroom.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Working at the motel, maybe going down to the Wobbly Elm for drinks tomorrow. You?” She put her feet up on the corner of the wooden display table that occupied the main part of the space.

“Nothing interesting.” Patrick pulled one of his feet up on the chair, his left knee in a deep bend. “I’ve got to help Ray do some repair work in one of the bathrooms tomorrow, and then I need to do some shopping for—”

“Oh my _god_.”

Both Stevie and Patrick turned around to where David was coming out of the storeroom, staring at his phone. His mouth was wide open, an oval of shock and/or dismay.

“What?”

“My closest friend from high school, Cecily, is getting married.” He sat back down in his chair, still staring at the offending phone.

“I thought you didn’t have any friends in high school,” Stevie said.

“Well, when I say friend, I don’t mean to imply we had a relationship based on mutual trust and shared interests. I mean she and I hated a lot of the same things and we had a relationship built on tearing those things down.”

“That sounds sweet,” Patrick said.

“We also occasionally turned that power on each other; it wasn’t the healthiest relationship.” He looked back at his phone. “Anyway, she messaged me specifically to see if I got the invitation to her wedding, which I didn’t. And to tell me she ‘really wants me to come.’” He made air quotes with his fingers for that last part. “As if.”

“Your closest high school friend is getting married and you aren’t going to go?” Patrick asked.

“We haven’t exactly kept in touch, and she probably just wants to see me so that she can enjoy first-hand how poor I am now. Or so she can show off her perfect relationship to me while I have no one. No thank you.” 

“Okay, yeah, that does sound bad,” Stevie admitted.

“I mean look at what she wrote to me,” David said, reading from his messages. “‘I know we were both dicks in high school, so you may not realize that you helped me survive a really dark time in my life, and it would mean so much to me to have you there on my special day.’ What kind of game is that?”

Patrick looked very confused. “Maybe it’s… not a game? Maybe she’s being sincere?”

“Cecily was never sincere,” David said, putting his phone down.

“Where’s the wedding?” Stevie asked, finishing the wine in her glass and getting up to refill it.

“Toronto. She and I were both Canadians by birth, that was the other thing we sort of bonded over, I guess: how much better New York City was than Canada.”

Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Am I going to have to go to battle here to defend the honor of my homeland?”

“In any case, even if she is being sincere, I’m not going to go to a wedding alone. That’s too depressing,” David said.

“You could take Stevie as your date,” Patrick said, giving them the overly innocent face that meant he was trolling them.

“Oh, hell no,” Stevie said. “I hate dancing. And dressing nice. And people declaring their love publicly.”

“I’m not going,” David repeated.

“I think you should take Patrick as your date,” Stevie said, feet going back up on the display table as David’s head whipped around. He shot her a look that should have melted her face off her bones, which made Stevie smile even wider. This evening was turning out way better than she could have hoped. She turned to Patrick. “You’d go to this wedding as David’s date, right, Patrick? Give him some arm candy so that people won’t think he’s single and alone?”

Patrick’s neck flushed crimson at this, which David didn’t notice because he was keeping his eyes carefully averted from Patrick. “I mean, sure, I’d be happy to go if David wanted company,” he said evenly.

“Okay, who would watch the store?” David asked, standing up suddenly and stalking around in front of the windows. “By which I mean, I’m not going to this wedding, so I don’t know why we’re even talking about this.”

“Alexis and I could take care of the store for a weekend.”

David stopped pacing, his face going through a series of expressions. “Absolutely not.”

“You know, David, you were just saying that you hadn’t had a day off from the store in ages,” Patrick said. “You’ve pretty much been working non-stop for the last six months. You could use a break, and Stevie and Alexis are perfectly capable of taking care of things for a couple of days.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure you’d be _thrilled_ to pretend to be my date at this thing,” David said in a way that made it clear he thought Patrick would want nothing of the sort.

Patrick shrugged, his arms folded across his chest. “To be honest, I could use a break too. Being your date — or _pretend_ date — at a wedding wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a weekend.” Patrick’s voice was calm and nonchalant but Stevie was watching him closely, and she saw a tiny hitch in his breath at the end of that statement. She saw the way his fingers clutched at his opposite bicep tight enough to whiten his knuckles.

David sighed. “Fine.” His hands moved restlessly the way they often did, but Stevie thought that maybe they gave away a little more nervous energy than usual. “We can go, I guess.” He was trying and failing to suppress a smile. “It would be nice to see which of my classmates have already resorted to plastic surgery.”

“And to see your friend, who it sounds like genuinely wants to see you,” Patrick said.

David waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, I suppose that too.”

_______________

**_David_ **

The closer the weekend of the wedding got, the more anxious David felt. It was now twelve days away, and even though he had the morning off, he’d woken up early and couldn’t fall back to sleep. He scrolled through his phone, not really seeing what he was looking at. His thoughts could be summed up with the following bullet points:

  * Patrick in a suit
  * dancing with Patrick at the wedding
  * sharing a hotel room with Patrick



The last point was occupying most of his thoughts since last night, when Patrick had texted him a link to a room at the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Toronto. _This one looks decent_ , Patrick had texted. _Is 1 rm with 2 double beds ok? Cheaper than 2 rooms._

David’s brain had sort of shorted out for a minute at that text, so much so that it didn’t even occur to him to turn up his nose at the Holiday Inn Express. And if it had occurred to him, it would have been a silly impulse; the room would certainly be nicer than the one he’d been sharing with his sister for the last couple of years. He’d let himself imagine it: Patrick coming out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel, clean and warm from the shower. Patrick shaving in front of the mirror where David could see him, the muscles of his shoulders moving under his skin. 

After several minutes being distracted by an increasingly pornographic fantasy, David had remembered that he should text Patrick back. _Yeah, looks good._

**Patrick:** _Ok, I’ll book it. Friday and Saturday night, the 17th and 18th, right?_

David had double checked his messages from Cecily before responding: 👍

When Patrick replied, it had almost made David drop his phone. _Ok, it’s booked. I triple-checked that it wasn’t only one bed, otherwise this whole thing turns into a rom com._ 😉

Recovering enough to type, David’s fingers hesitated over the keyboard before he’d quickly written, _But I like rom coms_ , and sent the text, wincing.

Dots had appeared immediately. _Oh, should I change it then? Maybe see if they have a room with a mirror on the ceiling?_

**David:** _Whatever your into_  
_you’re*_

**Patrick:** _Wouldn’t you like to know_

David had typed, _I would_ , but then quickly deleted it. That would take this one step too far beyond harmless flirtation, wouldn’t it? Instead he’d responded, _Thanks for taking care of the hotel_ , which had led to a few more texts about the logistics of the trip from Patrick. The flirtation, if that’s what it had been, was apparently over.

It didn’t stop David’s mind from perseverating on it this morning, though. After so many late nights working on getting the store up and running, so many meals together at the café or in the storeroom huddled together over their plans for the business, David felt like he knew Patrick pretty well. He looked at the texts again. Had Patrick been flirting or just joking around? Referring to the two of them in a romantic comedy was definitely flirting, right? Making reference to them sharing one bed with a mirror on the ceiling, surely no one could interpret that as anything other than flirting. He needed to ask Alexis, or failing that, Stevie. 

Resolved, he finally got out of bed (still way too early for a Sunday when the store wasn’t opening until the afternoon). After going through his usual morning routine, David left the room only to collide with a short redhead outside.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Yep,” David replied, and then took a closer look at the woman. She was visibly crying, and David cringed. He hated awkward social interactions, and he really wanted to ignore what was happening here, but then he thought of Patrick. Patrick wouldn’t ignore this woman’s distress. Patrick would try to fix things because Patrick was a good person. 

“Do you need help?” David asked.

The woman swiped under her eyes with her index fingers. “No, I just need to get out of this stupid town because clearly coming here was a huge mistake.”

David laughed awkwardly. “Coming here is usually a huge mistake, yes.”

She shook her head. “I was… I was trying to create this big romantic gesture. Get my ex-fiancé talking to me over text, get him to agree to talk to me in person, and then… ta da! I’m actually already here in town! We have a tearful reunion, and he realizes he wants to take me back, and… it didn’t work out.”

David was slowly trying to shrink into himself during this woman’s outburst, none of which he wanted to be a part of. _This is what you get when you try to help_ , he thought, scolding the imaginary Patrick in his head. _Too much information._

“Oh no,” he said faintly.

“Patrick just kept saying it was over, and that we shouldn’t see each other.”

David felt the ground drop out from under him. “Your…” he stopped and cleared his throat. “Your ex-fiancé’s name is Patrick?”

“Yeah, Patrick Brewer, do you know him?”

“Umm…” David pulled at the collar of his sweater. “No, I was thinking of a different Patrick, I think. Brewer doesn’t ring a bell.”

The woman shot him a tiny smile. “Okay, thanks. Anyway, this is the end of the road for me.” She gestured to the office. “I’m going to go check out and start the drive back home.”

“Mm hmm,” David said, retreating back into his room. He leaned against the inside of the door, his eyes squeezed shut, and tried not to spiral.

_______________

**_Patrick_ **

At twelve noon on the dot, Patrick flipped the sign on the Rose Apothecary door to ‘Open.’ David was late, but that was no real surprise. Patrick’s eyes scanned the shelves and then he went into the back to get a box of toner; it looked like they’d had a run on the stuff the day before.

When he heard the bell on the door ring, Patrick rushed back out to help whatever prompt customer had shown up, only to find David standing by the door, his sunglasses still on. 

“Oh, hey,” Patrick said, trying (as always) not to be distracted by the way David looked in a pair of skinny jeans. “No customers yet. I was restocking the toner.”

“Umm, okay.” David took his sunglasses off and set them on the counter. “Hey, random question, but do you have a short, cute ex-fiancée with red hair?”

Patrick’s heart began pounding, and he focused on setting down the bottle of toner he was holding before he dropped it. “Wh— Why do you ask?”

“I mean, I know the answer is yes; either that, or you have a very creepy stalker who fits that same description.” David approached, his face inscrutable. “She was at the motel this morning.”

“She’s _here_?” Patrick thought back over the last couple of days of texts from Rachel. She definitely hadn’t mentioned being here in town. 

“Well, she was. By now, I assume she’s been gone for a couple of hours at least.”

Patrick heaved a big sigh of relief. 

David watched him for a few seconds, and then went over to refold the wool throws. “So what’s the story there?” he asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

Going back to restocking the toner, Patrick tried to keep his voice even. “Her name is Rachel. We got together when we were in high school, and we've been on and off ever since. I don't know, we always sort of… fell back into it. Anyway, she's been reaching out and expecting us to get back together for the past few months.”

“And you don’t want that,” David said. Patrick looked up at him, but David was focusing on his hands. “To get back together.”

“No,” Patrick said forcefully — probably too forcefully, given that this was a just a conversation between coworkers about a past relationship. “It’s really over this time, which is what I told her. She didn’t tell me she was here.”

David shot him a sympathetic look. “She was hoping for a big romantic gesture, if and when you opened the door to meeting with her.”

Patrick set the box of toner bottles down and threaded his fingers together, clenching his hands. “I should have told her…” he started, then thought better of finishing that sentence. Was now the right time to tell David? When they had this trip together coming up?

David was looking at him curiously, but then he refocused on his folding.

Patrick took a deep breath and let it out. “I should have told her that the reason it never worked between us is because I’m gay,” he blurted.

David’s head shot up and he met Patrick’s eyes across the store. “Oh. Okay.”

“Yeah.” Patrick continued to worry his hands. He blew out a breath. “Wow, I’ve never said that out loud before.”

David gave him a gentle smile that made his knees weak. “Well, I’m honored.”

He wanted to say so much more. He wanted to say that it was David himself who had helped Patrick come to that realization, based on how Patrick’s heart raced every morning when David walked into the store, the way he fixated on little details like the way the dark hair followed the curve of the side of David’s hand, or the shape of his knees when he wore artfully ripped jeans.

Also the way he’d been masturbating to increasingly vivid fantasies about David for the past four months. That was a small clue.

He wanted to tell David all of that (well, _most_ of that) but he had no idea how to begin. And the idea of David kindly letting him down, telling him that they were better off as friends, or that business partners shouldn’t get romantically involved… it made him want to curl up in a ball on the floor just thinking about it.

“It probably would make it easier for her to move on if you told her the truth,” David offered carefully.

Patrick sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

_______________

**_Stevie_ **

“Well, that was a bust.” Stevie flopped into the stool beside David at the bar. Her head felt hazy, and she squinted at his martini, trying to focus enough for the two glasses she was seeing to coalesce into one glass. 

David turned around and looked at the guy Stevie had been chatting up. “What was wrong with him?”

“He asked me if we could go out back and if I would take off my shoes so that he could touch my feet.”

“Hmm.” David stuck his fingers in his drink and plucked the olive out, sticking it in his mouth. “He might want to hold the foot fetish stuff back until the second date.”

Stevie snorted, and then waved down the bartender to bring her another drink, then she turned to David and rested her chin on her hand. “So, this time next week you’ll be in Toronto with Patrick.” She emphasized every consonant of Patrick’s name, grinning widely.

“Uh huh.”

“David, he’s so into you. Would he be going with you next week if he wasn’t into you?”

David stared into his glass and said nothing. The bartender put a similar martini in front of her — David Rose had turned Stevie into someone who occasionally drank martinis. She looked at the way the gin left thin lines of liquid behind on the inside of the glass as she swirled it, briefly mesmerized.

“Also you know he’s gay now, which — again, would you have been the first person he came out to if it weren’t important to him that you in particular know his sexual preferences?”

David continued to say nothing.

“So we’re agreed,” Stevie continued as if David was holding up his end of the conversation. “Next weekend you make your move.”

“No, we are not agreed.”

“Why not?”

David sighed. “It’s not that I don’t think he’s into me. Maybe he thinks he is. But he’s never been with a guy, Stevie. He’s just figuring out his sexual orientation, and the last thing he needs is a disaster like me coming into his life and… messing everything up.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re already in his life. He’s spent almost every waking hour with you for the last four months. He knows you, David, and I don’t see him going anywhere.” Stevie poked her finger at the bar to make her point.

“And second, even if he is a little baby gay, he’s also a grown man who can be trusted to make his own decisions. And third…” The music on the jukebox changed, and Stevie took a moment to sing along to the first few bars of the Shania Twain song someone had played. 

“Was there a third thing?” David said.

“Yeah. Third, you aren’t going to mess everything up. You’re a better person than you give yourself credit for.”

David stared at her for a minute while Stevie twisted back and forth on her stool and resumed singing Shania. 

“I think you’re my best friend,” David shouted over her impromptu serenade.

Stevie blinked at him. “You _think_?”

_______________

**_Patrick_ **

The phone rang four times before Rachel picked up. “Patrick?” She sounded very surprised to be hearing from him.

“Someone told me I owe you a better explanation for why I broke things off.”

He poured all of it out. The fact that when he ran away to Schitt’s Creek, he didn’t understand why the idea of getting married was so terrifying. That when he first started having feelings for David Rose, he thought maybe it was David specifically, with his wit and his dramatics and the way his hair swept up from his forehead. That he’d thought back through his life, looked at old relationships with new eyes, and realized that there were signs he was gay going back a long way, he’d just been too much in denial to see them for what they were. And now that he’d known David for a long time, worked closely with him over these months, he’d fallen head over heels for him but was too afraid to tell him.

“I want to be furious with you for wasting so many years of my life,” Rachel said.

“You deserve to be.”

“But right now what’s making me more furious is that after all those wasted years, you’re wasting more time pining after your business partner when you could just tell him how you feel.”

“You don’t know him, Rachel, he’s experienced and worldly, and… a guy like me is definitely not his type.”

“Patrick, for once in your life you know what you want. For god’s sake, go and get it.”

That phone call drove Patrick to seek out the scotch that he’d bought several weeks ago, stashed on a high shelf in Ray’s pantry. He helped himself to a generous pour and swallowed it down, wincing at the way it burned in his chest. Taking the glass and the bottle out to the living room, Patrick turned on the TV. Ray was at a poker game at Bob’s, and Patrick had the house to himself.

He put on a baseball game, watching it with half his attention while he looked at his phone with the other half. David had posted a blurry selfie of him and Stevie at the bar. Neither of them looked in any fit state to drive, and it made Patrick worry. _I hope you and Stevie have a ride home_ , he texted to David.

The return text came after a few minutes and a 6-4-3 double play which ended the 6th inning of the game.

**David:** _We took a cab. Thnak u for worrying abut us._

**Patrick:** _Drink some water when you get home._

**David:** _Yes honey_

Patrick raised his eyebrows at that. _‘Honey?’_ He stared at the text for a long time, formulating and discarding several jokes. His own faculties were a bit impaired by the scotch, or he was certain he’d be able to come up with the perfect flirtatious response. The crack of a bat made Patrick look up at the television, watching as the ball sailed into the right field stands and the batter rounded the bases. He slumped further down on the sofa, his phone still cradled in his hand.

When his phone chimed, Patrick woke with a start. He looked down at the screen.

**David:** _I made it safely to bed_

**Patrick:** _Good to hear. I need to do the same._

**David:** _Idk if you’ll fit, this is a very small bed._ 😉

 **Patrick:** _In your dreams_

**David:** _Occasionally, yes_

Patrick’s breath caught and stared at that text for a full minute, biting his lip. Was David saying what he thought he was saying? 

**David:** _Sorry, ingore me, im drunk_  
_ignore*_

Patrick groaned and smacked himself on the forehead. If he could have come up with a sexy rejoinder to David’s text, they could have kept the flirting going. Instead, David probably thought he’d overstepped. In his desperation to give some indication that he liked the flirting, Patrick sent one more text: _Sweet dreams, David._ 😘

And then after a long pause, he received a reply: _Sweet dreams, Patrick._

They didn’t see each other at all the next morning. David texted Patrick just before the store opened to tell him he was going to do the farm pickups, so Patrick rattled around the store all morning alone, reliving the text exchange and imagining how it could have gone differently. He could have told David that he had dreams about them sometimes too, and then maybe David would have asked what kind of dreams, and Patrick could have intimated they were of a sexual nature, and then gradually revealed that—

The store phone’s shrill ring interrupted his thoughts, and Patrick stalked over and picked it up. “Rose Apothecary, how can I help you?”

“I’m looking for David Rose.” It was a woman’s voice. If Patrick had been asked, he’d have characterized it as imperious.

“He’s not here right now, can I take a message?”

“Oh. I tried his cell, but he didn’t answer. This is Cecily Morgan’s mother, I had a question about this weekend.”

“Oh! Sorry, Mrs. Morgan, David’s picking up merchandise at some Amish farms in the area, and cell service is spotty out there. Is it anything I can help with? This is Patrick, I’m David’s plus-one for the wedding,” Patrick said.

“Ah. Hello, Patrick. Yes, I wasn’t sure if you and David would be attending the dinner on Friday night,” she said. “Cecily wanted David there even though he’s not part of the wedding party.” Patrick could hear the disapproval in her voice.

“Unfortunately, we can’t leave here until five o’clock on Friday, so we probably won’t get to Toronto until around nine. I think David told Cecily he’d meet their group at the hotel bar after dinner.” 

“All right, so David’s a ‘no’ for the rehearsal dinner,” Mrs. Morgan said, and Patrick could hear her shuffling papers. She seemed as disapproving that he wasn’t coming as she had been that he’d been invited. 

“Yeah, so sorry about that,” Patrick said.

“So you’re David’s boyfriend, I take it? You must be a saint, if you don’t mind my saying so. He was quite the handful in high school.”

Patrick _did_ mind her saying so, very much. And he imagined that if he admitted to just being David’s date for the wedding and nothing more, it would probably confirm all of this horrible woman’s worst assumptions about David.

“Yes, I’m his boyfriend, and no, I don’t find that sainthood is required,” he said, not caring that his frustration was probably audible in his voice.

“Oh? How long have you been a couple?” As if to say that it couldn’t have been very long. Implied was the very thing that David tended to say about himself, that no one stuck around once they got to know him. Patrick’s defensiveness dialed up another couple of notches.

“We’ve been together for several months,” Patrick said quickly. 

“How nice. Well, I’ve got a lot more calls to make. Looking forward to meeting you, Patrick, bye-bye,” she said, and the phone line went dead before he could respond in kind.

It wasn’t until Patrick’s defensive anger drained away that it registered with him what he had said. By the time David returned with his arms loaded with farm goods, Patrick’s anxiety had reached a fever pitch.

“David, I did something really stupid,” he said as soon as David had dumped his boxes on the counter.

“Okay well, tell me what it is while you help me unload the car,” David said, not looking particularly concerned. Patrick followed David out to the Lincoln, where the trunk was filled with jars of apple butter and jam and boxes of knit garments. Patrick picked up one of the crates of jam, the jars inside tinkling as he muscled it inside. “Cecily’s mom called the store, looking for you.”

“Ew. Why? She hated me.”

“Yeah, it showed. She wanted to know if we’d be at the dinner Friday night, so I explained that no, we couldn’t make Toronto until late. And then…” He set the crate down. “I don’t know, somehow she ended up saying to me that you must be a handful… as a boyfriend?”

“ _What?_ ”

“I know, and it pissed me off, so I sort of... “ Patrick rubbed his sweaty palms off on his jeans. “I might have… exaggerated our relationship. Because I didn’t like what she was implying.”

“Exaggerated our relationship, how?” David pulled his sunglasses off, and having to look him in the eye didn’t make this any easier.

“I might’ve said that we’d been dating for several months.” Off David’s shocked face, Patrick threw up his hands. “I don’t know, David, she was sneering at you and I didn’t like it. And you’re not a handful,” he added more softly.

“Okay, well you aren’t actually dating me, so you don’t know that,” David said.

 _I’d like to_ , Patrick thought, clenching his jaw to keep himself from blurting it out.

“In any case, I can straighten it out. I’ll text Cecily, and—”

“No, I don’t want you to have to do that, not if it means those people are going to judge you because you aren’t coupled off.” Patrick tried not to think about why he might want people to think he and David were in a committed relationship. “Unless, I mean, if you don’t want people to think that your boyfriend is a business major from rural Ontario, I understand.”

David was trying to suppress a smile and shaking his head. “I’d be proud if my boyfriend were a business major from rural Ontario.”

Patrick grinned. “Any business major from rural Ontario? Because I went to college with this guy named Chad—”

“Stop it.” David reached out and smacked Patrick lightly on the arm with the back of his hand. “I mean I’d be proud if the people at Cecily’s wedding thought that you and I were… together.”

His heart racing, Patrick crossed his arms and shrugged, trying his best to look casual. “Then there’s no harm in letting them think that, especially if it keeps that harpy from saying mean things about you.”

David covered his mouth with his hands briefly before dropping them to his sides. “I guess not.” He put his sunglasses back on. “Come on, let’s get the rest of the stuff.”

_______________

**_David_ **

“So how did we start dating?” David asked when they’d been on the road for about two hours. 

Patrick glanced at David quickly before turning his eyes back to the road. “What?”

David fidgeted with the torn knee of his jeans. “In case anyone asks, we should probably plan to tell people how we started dating.”

“Oh.” Patrick reached out and turned down the music on the car stereo. David had put himself in charge of the road trip playlist, and it was Rihanna that Patrick was currently silencing. David tried not to hold it against him. “Well, I guess I’d tell people that I was interested in dating you from when we first started working together to open the store, and… hm.” David frowned at the way Patrick seemed to be struggling to get words out. “And then we went out on a date for your birthday, and at the end of the night, I kissed you.”

David’s mouth fell open. That was almost exactly what had happened, except there had been no kiss. David could still remember the tension in that car, the sense that maybe Patrick wanted to kiss him, but was just too afraid to do it. David had been too afraid as well.

“We _did_ go out on my birthday,” David said softly.

Patrick cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, it’s easier if the lie is close to the truth, right?”

“Mm hmm.” David nodded and nodded and then had to consciously stop nodding before his head came right off of his neck and rolled into the back seat of Patrick’s car. 

“And we’ve been together ever since,” Patrick said.

“Except for when I briefly broke things off because your ex-fiancée came to town,” David said.

Patrick gave him a mock gasp. “You’d break up with me because my ex-fiancée came to town?”

“I mean, if you didn’t tell me about all of her texting, I might. I’m kind of prone to making things like that about me,” David said with a smirk.

“Uh huh. Well, I’m glad our relationship weathered that storm.” Patrick said, grinning.

“Me too.” They fell into silence, and David spent some time imagining what it would have been like if he and Patrick really had been dating throughout the last several months. Stolen kisses in the storeroom and attempts to find alone time at the motel or at Ray’s. Dates at the café, and slow walks home afterward because neither of them wants to say goodnight. 

“Scarily enough,” David said, “this imaginary relationship would be the longest relationship I’ve ever had.”

“This would be the longest relationship you’ve ever had? Well, maybe I should come up with a story about a present I got you to commemorate that fact.”

“No.”

“Like an edible arrangement. Or a giant cookie.”

David slumped down in his seat, scowling at the way Patrick was teasing him. “Well, now I’m hungry.”

Patrick laughed, and so David reached over and turned up the stereo and began loudly singing along to Beyoncé.

By the time they pulled into the hotel, the long day of work followed by a four-hour drive had left David exhausted, eyes itchy and limbs heavy, and he desperately wanted to fall into bed and sleep and have a respite from thinking about how much he wanted to be Patrick’s boyfriend for real. But he’d promised Cecily he’d meet her in the bar of her much-nicer hotel, so once he and Patrick had freshened up a bit, they set off on foot to walk the ten minutes over to the St. Regis.

Cecily screamed his name when she spotted him, extracting herself from the center of a gaggle of people to rush over and give him a hug. “I’m so glad you caaaaame!” she shouted, her mouth wide and smiling. 

David looked her up and down, marveling that the goth kid he’d known with black fingernail polish and baggy clothes had evolved into this elegant woman. “It’s so good to see you,” he said politely, uncertain what they were to each other or how to even talk to her now.

“And this is…?” she asked, gesturing to Patrick.

David felt a flush of panic. It had been fun to talk about pretending to be a couple, but now that they were in it, he wasn’t sure if he could actually go through with it. “This is… um, this is… myyyy…”

Patrick reached out and shook Cecily’s hand. “I’m Patrick, David’s boyfriend.”

“Ooh, he’s cute,” Cecily said to David.

“Thanks,” Patrick said, giving her that bashful smile that made David want to sink his teeth into him.

“Come on over and meet everyone!” she said, dragging them back to the bar and introducing them to her friends. David tried for once to focus on people’s names, but it was challenging when Patrick slipped an arm around his waist. He felt every point of contact between them, the warm press of Patrick’s arm against his lower back and his hand resting lightly on his waist and the side of his hip against David’s leg. He tried to act calm about it, like a person would be when their boyfriend put an arm around them in public, but David felt like his face was probably doing something strange while he stood there and listened to Cecily’s maid of honor tell an amusing story about the day they’d all gone with the bride to watch her try on dresses. 

“Do you want a drink?” Patrick asked.

“Umm, sure. A glass of pinot noir?”

Patrick nodded, then leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the lips before disengaging his arm and approaching the bartender. David stood there, staring after him, frozen. They hadn’t negotiated this, the public displays of affection, and it occurred to him that they should have. Not that what Patrick had done was wrong or inappropriate. Boyfriends kissed each other in public, at least in places where they weren’t in danger of becoming victims of a hate crime, and the kiss was merely a brief brush of lips. But David thought it was going to be difficult to conduct himself in a reasonable manner when his soul had just floated out of his body to hover near the ceiling. 

As the night wore on and he had a few more drinks, David got more comfortable with the game of casual affection they were playing. As they sat in a loose circle of chairs with the wedding party, David let his hand come to rest on Patrick’s knee. Patrick, in turn, rested his arm over the back of David’s chair, his fingers tracing the shoulder seam of his sweater. Later, as Patrick talked to Cecily about the store, David indulged in something that had been tempting him for months, and reached over and stroked the back of Patrick’s head near the nape of his neck. When Patrick was invited to join in a game of pool across the bar with a couple of the groomsmen, they exchanged another brief kiss before he left. It was wonderful and excruciating.

“Your boyfriend is a doll,” Cecily sidled up to him and said.

“Yeah, he really is.”

“So is it serious?”

David looked over at Patrick, laughing and circling the pool table before leaning down to take a shot. He looked competent at it, which was very sexy. “Getting there,” he said, wishing it was true.

“Hey, I wanted to tell you, I meant what I said about our high school years,” Cecily said. “I know I was sometimes awful to you back then, but I assure you it originated out of a place of pure self-hatred.”

David nodded. “I have a passing acquaintance with self-hatred.”

“Anyway, my lifelong struggle with mental health aside, I really do feel like I only survived high school because you were there to sneer at everything with me. So thank you.” She hugged him. He didn’t remember Cecily ever hugging him before, and here she’d done it twice in one night. “I’m so glad to see that you’re doing well.”

When the party began to break up, David and Patrick said their goodbyes and walked back to their hotel. The cool air sobered David up a bit, and he immediately began to feel awkward about their little demonstrations of affection over the course of the night. 

“Cecily is really nice,” Patrick commented as they waited at an intersection for the walk signal.

“Yeah. She’s _very_ different from when were kids.” The light changed and they crossed the street.

“Listen, David, I hope it was okay, the… um… PDA.” He scratched his ear, looking embarrassed. “I probably should have asked about that ahead of time.”

“It was fine,” David said quickly. It had been more than fine. It had been pretty much everything he’d been wanting. Okay, not _everything_ , but it was like the edge of everything. The flash of an ankle that hinted at everything.

“I sort of panicked when I realized we hadn’t discussed it,” Patrick went on.

“You didn’t seem that panicked when you kissed me,” David said, teasing.

A hint of a grin broke out on Patrick’s face. “That _was_ me panicking.”

“You have an interesting way of panicking,” David said, and then because he really couldn’t bare to talk about it anymore, “It was fine. Everyone thought we were a nice couple, which was the goal, I guess.” He thought that was the goal. It seemed a flimsy sort of excuse to pretend to be dating, now that he thought about it, but he shoved that idea aside.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, his smile evaporating.

“I hope you aren’t regretting… coming to this thing with me,” David said, looking down at his feet as they walked.

“No, why would I regret coming with you?”

David shrugged. “I don’t know.”

They got back to the room and took turns in the bathroom. While David waited for Patrick to change, his phone buzzed, and he clicked on the text from Cecily to see a picture of himself and Patrick pop up. They were sitting in the bar, Patrick laughing at something while David looked at him fondly. _Thought you might want this pic I took._ David replied to her text with a heart emoji, and saved the photo to the folder where he kept his favorite pictures.

By the time David had finished his evening skincare routine, Patrick was in bed, his back to the room, his breathing even. David looked at him for several seconds, then turned off the light and got into the other bed. He lay there staring at the ceiling for a long time before sleep finally took him.

_______________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An [acoustic version of "Hey Ya"](https://open.spotify.com/track/6QeLUyIfNHCJhEMSPGwDgi) actually does exist, scarily enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Patrick_ **

Patrick sat at the hotel room desk in his best suit, drumming on the table with his fingers. He figured David had about eight minutes left before they were truly in danger of being late to the ceremony. When a text popped up on his phone screen, he grinned.

**Stevie:** _has david’s primping made u late for the wedding yet?_

**Patrick:** _close_

**Stevie:** _thoughts and prayers_

**Patrick:** _How’s the store?_

**Stevie:** _we burned it down. is that a problem?_  
😝  
_it’s fine._

Underneath the anxiety about being late, there was another layer of nervous excitement that the whole last evening had left on his nerves. Touching David, kissing him (however briefly) had been everything he imagined it would be, everything he wanted. It was like getting a glimpse at paradise through the bars from the outside. He wanted that kind of casual physical affection with David like nothing he’d ever wanted before. Before he could second guess himself, he picked up his phone again and shot off another text: _I’m crazy about him._

**Stevie:** _duh_  
_so tell him_

**Patrick:** _I’m afraid to._

**Stevie:** _if it helps, he’s crazy about u too_

Patrick’s heart might have stopped beating as he read that text and typed his reply. _Are you speculating or do you know that?_

**Stevie:** _at the risk of violating david’s trust - i know that_  
_he’s afraid of losing you and then losing the store, but we both know thats not gonna happen_  
_heres ur to do list, because i know you like lists_  
_1\. dance with him at the reception_  
_2\. tell him how u feel_  
_3\. take him to ur hotel room and fuck his brains out_  
_4\. come home and give me several bottles of wine as a thank you gift_

Hands trembling, Patrick simply replied, _that’s quite a list_. Then he had to put his phone away, because David finally emerged from the bathroom.

The black suit he wore was simple, but the sight of David in a suit scrambled Patrick’s insides. His stomach was doing somersaults inside his abdomen, and as he stood up he thought he might actually be sick. He laughed nervously. “Well, it took long enough, but I guess I can’t argue with the results.”

David sniffed. “Thank you for that backhanded compliment.” And then his mouth twisted in a suppressed smile that Patrick was very familiar with. “You look nice too.”

The wedding ceremony passed by in a blur. The people Patrick had met the night before all cleaned up well, and the bride was particularly gorgeous, and the whole thing went very smoothly. Patrick mostly sat there and thought about David, and the fact that he’d apparently told Stevie that he had feelings for him. He tried to figure out the right time to tell David about his own feelings. And he thought about the third point on Stevie’s list until he had to distract himself with baseball stats so that he didn’t embarrass himself.

When the bride and groom said their vows, David sniffled. Patrick handed him a tissue that he’d stuck in his pocket for exactly this reason, and after David had wiped his eyes, Patrick took his hand. He could feel David looking at him, but Patrick kept his gaze facing forward.

They were seated with friends of Cecily’s from college at the reception. This time David more smoothly introduced Patrick as his boyfriend, and Patrick’s heart skipped a beat at that word on David’s tongue. As they explained the store to the couple seated to David’s right, Patrick slung an arm over the back of David’s chair, his hand absently stroking the smooth fabric on David’s upper arm.

Dinner went by uneventfully, and then the dancing started. The bride and groom took the floor, and Patrick watched David watch them, his eyes glassy with more tears.

“You’re such a romantic,” Patrick whispered as he handed David another tissue.

“Sorry.”

“It’s not something you need to apologize for.”

The next few songs were upbeat crowd-pleasers, designed to get people onto the dance floor and not the kind that would allow Patrick to execute his plan. Or rather, Stevie’s plan. He excused himself to get another drink at the bar — a little bit of liquid courage for what was to come.

As he returned to the table, David was mouthing the words to the song that was playing, his eyes closed.

“You a Tina Turner fan?” Patrick said as he reclaimed his seat.

“Listen to the lyrics,” David said. “This song is a banger but the lyrics are actually quite lovely.”

Patrick listened, holding David’s gaze. 

The next song was a slow song, and it felt like the perfect moment. Patrick took a deep breath and let it out. “Will you dance with me, David?”

“You don’t have to do that,” David said, the corners of his mouth turning down.

“I want to,” Patrick said, holding out his hand.

David’s hand slid into his, warm and soft.

It occurred to Patrick as they claimed a space on the dance floor that he’d never slow danced with a man before, but before he could overthink it, David draped his arms over Patrick’s shoulders, so Patrick put his hands on David’s waist and they began swaying to the music. They danced in silence for a minute, and Patrick tried to calm his racing heart.

“I’m glad I got to see Cecily,” David said, his eyes on his old friend across the room. “So thank you… for encouraging me to come here. And for being my date.”

“It was my pleasure, David,” Patrick said, sliding his hands around to the small of David’s back. 

David met his eyes for a second before looking away. “I’m sure you could have found better ways to spend a weekend off from the store.”

Patrick shook his head. “Not possible.”

He was rewarded with another of David’s poorly suppressed smiles. “That’s a very nice thing to say.”

Using his hands on his back to pull David even closer, Patrick let his head slot into the crook of David’s neck, closing his eyes. The scent of David this close, aftershave and clean skin and a hint of sweat, lit Patrick up from the inside, and he tried to unobtrusively inhale more of David into his lungs. He wondered what David suspected — did he know how Patrick felt? Was he wanting Patrick to make the first move, or was he dreading that he would? It was now or never, Patrick thought. He couldn’t stand the limbo anymore. The not knowing. If Stevie was to be believed, David wanted him, and Patrick had to trust in that or perish from this unending, torturous pining.

Turning his head, Patrick let his lips brush against the skin of David’s neck, the gentle brush of a butterfly's wing. He felt David’s breath hitch, and _god, please. Please._ Patrick hesitated, breathing against David’s neck, their slight motion on the dance floor enough to nudge his lips against skin again briefly before falling away. 

Lifting his head enough to see David’s face, Patrick let his eyes drop to his mouth. He’d spent more of the last few months than he wanted to admit checking out this man’s mouth, the shape of it somehow both masculine and soft, a mouth for gentle kisses first thing in the morning and a mouth for ruining him, taking him apart piece by delicious piece. David’s tongue peeked out to moisten his lips, and if possible Patrick’s heart raced even faster than it already was. Surely David could feel it, galloping in his chest. It struck Patrick then like a thunderclap, that this was happening. They were going to kiss, and it wasn’t going to be pretend.

He and David moved at the same time, just as they did so many things together: balancing out the till at the end of the day and laughing over meals in the storeroom and washing the front windows of their store, the place that embodied their partnership, a partnership that could be so much more if they could both let go and let it happen. Their lips met slowly and gently, like it was the most natural thing in the world. They’d kissed a few times the night before, performative pecks on the lips in front of Cecily and her friends, play-acting as boyfriends. This was nothing like that. This time David’s lips were soft and yielding, so so much and not nearly enough. Patrick opened his mouth enough to pull David’s lower lip between his, and he felt David’s hand rest on the back of his head. His head swam with the perfection of the moment.

The song ended, and Patrick met David’s eyes. Then David withdrew, turning on his heel and hurrying out of the room.

Loud music rose around him and there was a cheer as more people rushed the dance floor, the way people do when a song is a shared memory and inside joke with a group of close friends. They were oblivious to Patrick’s turmoil, to the way he rushed in the opposite direction to follow David, his heart cracking open in his chest.

He found David in a small alcove next to the bathrooms, leaning against the wall with tears on his cheeks. Patrick’s heart sank.

“David, I’m sorry. I should have asked you before I—”

“No, _I’m_ sorry, I couldn’t…” He wiped his face. “It was too much for me, the thought that you were kissing me like that as part of this…” He gestured back toward the ballroom. “...pretend boyfriends thing.”

It was a little bit of a stab to the heart, that David thought that the most amazing kiss of Patrick’s life had been pretend. Hadn’t it been obvious that it wasn’t? Hadn’t he been feeling what Patrick was feeling?

“I didn’t kiss you just now because I was pretending,” Patrick blurted out. “I kissed you because I really, really wanted to kiss you.” He shrugged. “For me.”

David’s eyes closed, and he seemed to physically shrink away from Patrick. “You can do so much better than me. And when you figure that out, the store—”

“David,” Patrick said evenly, putting his hands on David’s biceps. “Everything else aside, I’m not going to abandon the store. I know how much it means to you, but please know that I love it too. It’s important to me too. You have nothing to worry about there.

“As for whether I can do better than you,” he continued with a small smile. “I think after all these months, I know you pretty well, so believe me when I say that that’s ridiculous.”

A small, watery laugh burst from David’s mouth. 

Patrick stepped further in, crowding David back into the dim alcove. “Can I kiss you again?”

David nodded. “Mm hmm.”

This time wasn’t like any of the other times their lips had met, perfunctory or slow and hesitant. This was months of restrained passion allowing itself to be felt. Months of longing finally fulfilled. David opened his mouth against Patrick’s, and the sheer incandescence of the moment, wet and hot and frantic, made Patrick wonder dimly if he was dreaming. Surely kissing in the real world could never really feel this good.

“How long have you wanted this?” David whispered when they finally came up for air.

“On your birthday. And when I brought you your business license. And last week when you dropped that box of hand cream on your foot. And every late night working together with you in the store. Most of the time I’ve known you.” He cupped David’s cheek with his hand. “I was afraid.”

“Me too,” David said, before diving back in for another kiss.

Loud laughter from a gaggle of women going to the bathroom caused them to break apart. Patrick chuckled, smoothing out David’s lapels where his hands had been clutching them into a wrinkled mess. 

“We should probably go back to the party,” David said.

Patrick tried to unobtrusively adjust the front of his pants. “I might need a minute,” he said, and he could feel his face heat up at that admission.

David gave him a leering smile. “That’s hot.”

“Stop it. Talk about something that’s not sexy.”

“Hmm… toilet plungers. My mother’s wig wall. Roland Schitt,” David said, ticking items off on his fingers.

“Okay, that’s working.”

“Roland and Jocelyn roleplaying in the bedroom. Roland and Jocelyn roleplaying while wearing my mother’s wigs.”

“Oh my god, stop, that’s enough,” Patrick said, grimacing. “I may not get an erection again for weeks.”

“Well, let’s hope _that’s_ not true. I was kind of hoping we could revisit that later tonight,” David said, taking his hand and leading him back to the ballroom.

Almost tripping over his own feet, Patrick blushed, his heart beating a rapid staccato in his chest. “We definitely can.”

Patrick felt giddy for the rest of the reception, dancing and eating cake and exchanging longing looks with David. Like magic, their pretend relationship had transformed into a real one in that one miraculous moment outside the bathrooms. He and David hadn’t said the words, hadn’t negotiated exactly what they were to each other now, but Patrick knew if David asked him, he might be unable to stop a lot of very scary words from spilling out, words like boyfriend and commitment and love. But if David wasn’t ready for that yet, Patrick knew he could be patient. He’d waited this long. They stayed and danced until the band played their last song, and they were holding hands again when they spilled out into the cool night air to walk back to their room.

“Maybe it’s kind of obvious, in retrospect, that we were both willing to pretend to be dating because we… both wanted to be dating,” Patrick said as they crossed the street.

David appeared to ponder that for a minute. “The appealing thing was being past the point in the relationship where people would leave,” David said. “In that fiction, you were Patrick Brewer, my long-term boyfriend, who liked me enough to stay. I figured that was the only way I’d get to have that.”

Patrick stopped walking, pulling David up short. “David, set a reminder on your phone for four months from today. Because on that day, you’ll be able to look up and see me across the store and say to yourself, ‘That’s Patrick Brewer, my long-term boyfriend, who liked me enough to stay.’”

David leaned over and kissed him, right there on the street, until someone down the block shouted, “Get a room!”

They parted, laughing. “As luck would have it, we _have_ a room,” David said.

“Yes, we do,” Patrick said, understanding in that moment what true joy felt like. “We should go there.”

David glanced behind them at the Rexall they happened to be standing next to. “Umm, about that… I don’t know about you, but since I wasn’t expecting anything to happen on this trip, I didn’t pack… any of the things we might need.” He winced, squinting one eye almost closed. “But I don’t want to set up expectations for what might happen by purchasing any particular… items.”

“Okay,” Patrick said, his heart back to racing. At this rate, he felt like he might have a heart attack before they could get to the bedroom. 

“I mean it, I don’t have any expectations for tonight. But I’d feel better if we were prepared. Is that okay?”

“Yes, David, that’s very sensible.” He followed David into the drug store, squinting under the bright fluorescent lights as he followed the taller man down one of the aisles, past colorful boxes of pads and tampons that Patrick supposed he’d probably never need to buy for anyone again, and that weird thought distracted him enough that he almost collided with David, who had stopped in front of the personal lubricants. Patrick blushed. 

“I have better stuff at home,” David sighed, picking up one of the bottles and grimacing. “I guess this will do.” He moved further down the aisle, elegant long fingers moving over the boxes of condoms before selecting a package. He looked up at Patrick and made his exaggerated cringing face again. “Again, I—”

“No expectations, I know,” Patrick said. He gave David what he hoped was a reassuring smile and tried not to focus on how much this whole process was making him nervous and sweaty.

Patrick panicked again for a second when he was faced with the prospect of standing at the register with David, two men in formalwear buying condoms and lube felt like an excruciating tableau to be a part of, but he didn’t want David to think he was ashamed of him. So Patrick stood there and read the headlines about the royal wedding and tried not to be visibly uncomfortable.

“Ready to go?” David said as he put his debit card back in his wallet and accepted the bag from the bored cashier, who clearly didn’t care what the two of them would be getting up to with their purchases.

“Sorry, I’m just a big Meghan Markle fan,” Patrick deadpanned as he followed David out of the store.

“Don’t joke about that, Meghan is a goddess,” David said.

The closer they got to their room, the more keyed up Patrick felt. He took a moment to absorb everything about this last moment before going to bed with David Rose was something he did: the click of David’s dress shoes on the lobby floor, the dark stubble on his chin that stood out starkly in the lighting in the elevator, the reflection of the lights off his silver rings has he slid their room key into the slot too quickly, and had to repeat the process three times before the light turned green.

As the door swung shut, their eyes met, and the next thing Patrick knew he was pressed against the wall, David’s tongue in his mouth, the crinkly thump of the Rexall bag hitting the floor as David wrapped his arms around him.

Patrick gave into temptation and did one of the things he’d thought about a lot as they worked side by side all those months in the store: he slid his hands down onto David’s ass and squeezed. Moaning into his mouth, David pressed forward with his hips, and Patrick could feel him, hard through his suit pants. Patrick gasped, grinding against David and suddenly so powerfully turned on that he thought he might faint.

David pulled away with visible reluctance. “Listen, if you need to go slow, don’t feel like you can’t say so. Anything you want to do — or not do — is good. Okay?”

Patrick reached up and stroked David’s cheek. “Thank you for that, and there probably will be things that I’m… not ready for. But I’ve wanted you for months and right now, slow is the farthest thing from my mind. I’m tired of slow.”

David was enthusiastically nodding, his hands already moving to slide Patrick’s suit coat off of his shoulders. “That sounds… really, really good.”

Patrick left his jacket on the floor, kicking his shoes off while David sat down and carefully unlaced and removed his own. “I won’t be able to afford another pair of Louboutins for at least a decade,” David explained, “so I have to be careful with these.”

“Uh huh,” Patrick said, moving over to stand between David’s knees and pushing David’s jacket from his shoulders. “But I can throw this suit on the floor, right?” David winced, and Patrick laughed. “I’m joking.”

“You can throw it on the other bed,” David said, reaching up to unbutton Patrick’s shirt.

“The bed we’re not going to be using,” Patrick said, joy blooming within him because _god_ , this was _happening_.

David’s lips quirked up in a half-smile as he finished with the buttons and Patrick whipped the shirt off, dropping it and reaching behind his head to pull off his t-shirt. David meanwhile was working on the buttons of his own shirt, but he paused to stare in appreciation at Patrick’s bare chest. Patrick’s hand dropped to his belt buckle, and he hesitated.

“Please don’t stop,” David whispered, finishing with the last few buttons and pulling his shirt off with jerky motions of his hands. As Patrick unbuckled his belt, David stood up again, and it was a challenge to focus on his pants at the same time they were kissing, so much skin pressed against skin, David’s hairier chest delicious against his own. Long fingers pressed into the skin of his back as David’s mouth dragged down to his throat, and Patrick gripped David’s biceps to keep himself upright.

“David,” he groaned.

“Yes, fuck, how did I keep my hands off you this long?” David whispered, his teeth scraping Patrick’s neck.

With renewed determination, Patrick reached out and seized David’s belt, fumbling with it with shaking hands until he had it unbuckled. His felt the outline of David’s erection with brief brushes of his fingertips as he unfastened and carefully unzipped. His pants dropping to the floor, David stepped out of them and was left only in a nice pair of black boxer briefs. Patrick couldn’t stop looking down at the shape of him. He was literally salivating at the sight, so fixated by David’s cock that he barely noticed his own pants being unfastened.

“Would you be more comfortable getting into bed before we…?” David said, indicating Patrick’s underwear.

“I don’t care, I don’t care,” Patrick muttered, pushing his own underwear down before he could overthink it. David grinned and did the same, and then they were fumbling their way into bed, everything hot and raw and immediate. Patrick pulled David down on top of him, kissing him deep and filthy as they thrust against each other, lost to the friction of their bodies together.

“Fuck,” Patrick moaned, biting David’s shoulder as his hands scrabbled for purchase on David’s ass, straining for more leverage.

“Wait, wait,” David whispered, pulling away. Patrick clenched his jaw, trying to figure out why David was stopping when it was so good.

David reached up and stroked his hair. “I don’t want to rush to the finish line. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, of course it’s okay.” Patrick pressed a hand to his forehead. “Sorry, I’m just… I’ve never wanted anyone this much before.”

Whimpering, David thew his head back onto the pillows. “See, when you say things like that, it makes it very difficult to slow things down.”

“No, you’re right.” Patrick let out a slow breath. “Let’s slow down a little.”

“Also,” David said, giving him another brief kiss, “I left the lube all the way over there.” With a flurry of bedding, David was up and across the room, picking up the bag from the floor where he’d dropped it and returning with a grimace. “Ew, did you watch me? Why did you watch me?” He set the bag on the bedside table and took out the lube, throwing it onto the duvet.

“Because I can’t take my eyes off you.”

“Well, I bet you regret that,” David said as he got back into bed.

“David, you’re beautiful.” Patrick said, rising up to hover over David as he lay down. “I’ve always thought you were beautiful.”

David’s face contorted in that compliment-rejecting way he had, and then he pulled Patrick down for a kiss. Their mouths met over and over, each time deeper and wetter, and Patrick struggled to keep his hips still and not grind against David’s leg until he embarrassed himself. It was more challenging than he would have thought, and he decided that the best thing to do would be to focus on David’s pleasure for a while.

Patrick let his mouth drag down from David’s lips to his jaw, kissing and sucking, paying attention to the places that made David moan. He found a spot below David’s ear that made him writhe and clutch at Patrick’s back, and he found that when he sucked hard at the juncture of David’s neck and shoulder, David blurted out a stream of deliciously filthy language. He kept moving down David’s body, enjoying how masculine he was — the scent of him, the sensation of chest hair against his face as Patrick experimented with running his tongue around David’s nipple, soft and pliant, so different from a woman. 

He continued moving lower, first to David’s abdomen (which made David giggle, and Patrick filed that piece of intel away for another time), then to that wonderful little crease where his thigh met his pelvis (where sharp suction on David’s skin made him gasp and put his hand on the back of Patrick’s head). Patrick was very aware of how close he was to David’s cock, and how much he wanted to take it in his mouth, but nerves began to take over now that he’d put himself in this position. He sat up on his heels, running his hands up and down David’s thighs and looking down at this man who seemed totally at his mercy, cock flushed and hard and aching for contact.

“You don’t need to… do anything you aren’t ready for,” David managed to get out, though his breath was shallow and reedy. 

“I really want to, though.”

“Okay,” David said quickly. 

“But I’m sure I won’t be as good as what you might be used to.” Unable to resist anymore, he reached out to touch David, loosely wrapping his hand around his shaft. 

David swore under his breath. “First of all, I’m not — god, _yes_ — I’m not used to anything of late, and second, anything you do will be amazing because it’s you.”

Emboldened by that, Patrick lowered his head and took David’s cock into his mouth. 

There was a lot to think about, Patrick quickly realized. Not taking him so deep that he gagged, and what to do with his tongue, and not letting his teeth get too involved. He tried to do what he himself liked, running his tongue up the underside of David’s cock and focusing on the head, but he felt too self-aware, a part of his brain screaming at him that he had a dick in his mouth, and another part worrying that David would think he was bad at this. Somehow despite all of that, Patrick found it very arousing, performing this act for David. He imagined making David come this way, in his mouth, and couldn’t resist reaching down to touch himself. 

Patrick’s jaw started to ache more quickly than he would have liked. He pulled off and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, replacing his mouth with his fist. “Is there more I can do that… that you’d like?”

David sat up and pulled Patrick close for a kiss. “You’re amazing, and I should warn you that I don’t always come my first time with someone new because I tend to overthink it. But you are so fucking sexy and your mouth should be illegal. Will you let me focus on you for a little while?”

Nodding, Patrick lay down at David’s side. 

They kissed for a few minutes, and Patrick found that David’s admission calmed him a little. He didn’t have to worry so much about making David come as a victory condition if it wasn’t on the table this time around. Still, he had every intention of making David’s pleasure the subject of long-term study and practice.

“Can I touch you?” David whispered against his lips, and Patrick nodded.

David sat up and fumbled around in the folds of the duvet before locating the lube. He squirted some into his palm, and then Patrick’s brain shorted out because David’s hand was on him, warm and slick as he stroked him and established a rhythm.

“David, oh god…” He pressed their foreheads together and gripped David’s shoulder, overwhelmed with the sensation of David’s hand on his cock. Being touched had never felt like this, never once in his life, and it made him feel like he might die if David ever stopped touching him.

“I’ve thought about this so many times,” David said into the small space between them. Patrick nodded, unable to speak, trying to communicate that he had too, every night as he went to sleep, imagining what he would do if he could have David Rose in his bed.

“Did you ever touch yourself and think of me?” David asked.

“Yes, all the time,” Patrick gasped, swallowing on a dry throat, wanting to get the words out so that David would know how badly he wanted him. “Thought about this, thought about your mouth on me, thought about fucking you…”

“Fuck, Patrick.” David shifted over on top of him, his hand adjusting so that he was pressing their bodies together and sort of gripping both of their cocks in one hand. “Don’t stop talking,” David said, “please.”

“I thought about you showing me how to…” Patrick struggled for the words, hands clutching at David’s back as he tried to match the rhythm of David’s hips moving against him. He’d never been a natural dirty talker, but David seemed to really like it, so he fought past his discomfort. “How to take you inside me. Let you fuck me.”

David groaned. “Yes, I’m going to make it so good for you, Patrick, taking my cock, it’ll be so good.” He rolled his hips and so did Patrick and now they were just rubbing against each other, David’s hand on him less important than the way Patrick’s cock was grinding against David’s body. 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Patrick said, rapidly losing control, hands sliding down over the muscles of David’s ass. “I want that. I want you every possible way I can have you. Jesus Christ, I’m so close,” he panted, his hips thrusting, everything slippery and hard and perfect.

Patrick’s orgasm hit him all of a sudden, and he cried out with the intensity of it, his fingers clutching hard enough to leave bruises. He was still in the throes of aftershocks when David levered himself up a bit, and Patrick opened his eyes in time to watch David stroke his own cock once, twice, and then come on Patrick’s stomach. It was so hot. David was so hot.

“Oh my god,” David said when he’d recovered, leaning over and kissing Patrick gently. “That was…”

“Yeah, it was…”

“Still thinking your mouth should be illegal, but for a different reason,” David said with a smirk.

Patrick chuckled, nuzzling into the crook of David’s neck. He knew they needed to get cleaned up, but he didn’t want to move yet. David had said he might not be able to come but he had, and it filled Patrick with a bubbly pride that what they had done together had been what David needed in order to let go.

“Who knew you’d have such a filthy mouth, Patrick Brewer?”

“I don’t, as a rule. I guess I find you inspiring. Anyway, you certainly seemed to like it.”

“Mmm. No, I suppose I can’t argue with your results.” David said with a sloppy grin.

_______________

**_David_ **

After they’d cleaned up, he pulled Patrick into his arms, loving the heaviness of Patrick as his arm rested on his chest and his leg curled on top of David’s. He expected post-coital lethargy to drag him into sleep, but David found that he was so damn happy that he couldn’t reconcile the feelings with sleeping. Happy, but also in the back of his mind, anxious. For better or worse, there was no going back from this to what they had been to each other before.

“So…” David said as he stroked his hand up and down Patrick’s arm. “Regrets?”

Patrick lifted his head quickly, looking at David. “No. Why would I have regrets?”

David winced. “I don’t know, I guess it’s a habit to ask.”

Putting his head back on David’s shoulder, Patrick scratched his blunt nails through David’s chest hair. “No, no regrets. I feel like a weight’s been lifted off of my chest. I wasn’t lying when I said I’ve been wanting this for a long time.”

“Mmm,” David said. “I guess I was just worried that maybe it wouldn’t live up to expectations.”

Patrick laughed at that. “If it had exceeded expectations any more, I don’t know if I’d be conscious.”

 _Well._ If David had been fishing for compliments (and he could admit to himself that maybe he’d been fishing for compliments a little bit), then he’d certainly landed a big one. 

Clearing his throat, Patrick said, “Now that we’re not in the heat of the moment, though, I’m realizing that admitting to the fact that I was, um, going home at night to jerk off and fantasize about you is a very creepy thing to say to one’s business partner.”

“No, it was an insanely hot thing to say, given the context,” David said, closing his eyes and focusing on his mental picture of Patrick with his own cock in his hand. “Anytime you want to talk about that, or better yet, show me what you look like when you’re doing that, you can feel free.”

Glancing down, he could see a blush rise on Patrick’s cheek. “Noted. Anytime? So, at the store, then?”

“If you think I wouldn’t call your bluff and close the store early one day so that I can watch you jerk off in the storeroom, then you don’t know me very well,” David said.

“I’m sure we could arrange for that after regular business hours, David,” Patrick said very reasonably, like they were discussing a pickup from a vendor. David closed his eyes again and revised his fantasy, so now Patrick had his cock in his hand next to the boxes of hand cream, light filtering in through the stained glass window and playing across his face in greens and yellows. It was such an arresting image that David had to adjust their positions so that he could spend some time kissing Patrick. Desire was still a remote thing, so soon after his orgasm, but the slow and sensual slide of their mouths against each other was too delicious to resist coming back to again and again as they talked quietly in the dark hotel room.

“So I told you how long I’d been wanting to kiss you,” Patrick said at one point during their makeout session. “What about you? When did you…” Patrick stopped, like he’d started to second guess whether he actually wanted the answer to the question.

David wasn’t sure if he wanted to answer either. Sex was one thing, but emotional vulnerability had never led anywhere good for him. But on the other hand this was Patrick, and if there was anyone in his life he could trust besides Stevie, surely it was Patrick. 

“I wanted to kiss you on my birthday,” David whispered, scratching through the short hair at the base of Patrick’s neck. “I thought maybe you wanted me to, but I wasn’t sure… I didn’t even know if you liked guys, so…”

“I was so furious with myself for not kissing you that night,” Patrick said.

“I kept thinking that if I made a move and it was unwanted, you wouldn’t want to run the store with me anymore.” David sighed. “To be honest, I’m still terrified that if things don’t work out between us, then…”

“It’s worth the risk though, right?” Patrick was gazing at him with those bottomless brown eyes, cheek pressed against his pillow, and _yes_ , David thought, _it’s worth the risk. It’s worth everything._

This time when they kissed, there was more heat to it, and David could feel Patrick getting hard, pressed as he was against David’s leg. It couldn’t have been even half an hour since he’d come, and David was a little jealous of Patrick’s short refractory period, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take advantage of it.

“Can I suck you, Patrick?” he whispered, already moving toward the bottom of the bed. 

Patrick moaned, his hand finding the back of David’s head. “Yeah. Uh huh. You can definitely do that.”

As he coaxed Patrick to lie on his back, one of his knees between Patrick’s legs as he hovered over his target, David thought about what it would be like to drag it out and edge Patrick over and over. But as soon as he had his lips around Patrick’s cock, heavy and hard in his mouth, David knew he wouldn’t be capable of that this first time. He needed to make Patrick come too badly, needed to hear it in his voice, to feel it, to taste it on his tongue. David worked him mercilessly, swirling his tongue around the head and across his slit before taking him deep and sucking hard, then repeating that pattern again and again. Patrick’s fingers traced his face, trembling as they skimmed over his stubble, then back into his hair.

“Fuck, I… I can’t…” Patrick mumbled, his hips straining as he tried not to thrust up into David’s mouth. Another time, David would urge him to do just that, to pull his hair and fuck his face, but they could save that for later too. “I’m gonna come,” he panted.

“Mm hmm,” David hummed around him, maintaining his rhythm until he felt Patrick’s cock gently pulse in his mouth, and continued sucking him through it until David felt him relax. Patrick whimpered as David finally let him slip from his mouth, and David collapsed at his side, both of them breathing hard. 

“I probably don’t need to tell you how good you are at that,” Patrick said, his hand fumbling to touch David and coming to rest on his upper thigh. 

“You don’t need to, but I like it when you do,” David whispered.

“You make me feel so good, David. No one’s ever…” Patrick rolled toward him. “You make me feel amazing.”

David squeezed his eyes shut, tears suddenly threatening to spill over. “You make me feel amazing too.”

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel… more amazing?” Patrick said, his voice low and sultry.

Chuckling, David sat up and fumbled with the bedding, pulling the sheet and duvet up over them both. “Not sure I’m capable of that kind of repeat performance tonight,” he said, although in truth, Patrick was very inspiring. But more importantly, the emotional rollercoaster of the last day had left David exhausted.

“Okay.” Reaching over, Patrick rested his hand on David’s chest. “Thank you.”

David raised an eyebrow. “For the blow job?”

“For being with me tonight. For everything.”

David brought his hand up and put it over Patrick’s, threading their fingers together. When he drifted off, Patrick was still holding his hand.

***

David was not a morning person, but when he opened his eyes, the hotel room clock told him it was barely seven o’clock. Patrick was pressed up against his back, which was making him too warm but was also really, really nice. The degree to which he could get used to this, _wanted_ to get used to this, was a little bit frightening.

He got out of bed carefully so as not to disturb Patrick (who didn’t stir at all) and went to the bathroom, relieving himself and brushing his teeth. He stared at himself in the mirror, noting one faint red mark on his neck and another on his hip, and a grin bloomed on his face. If Patrick was going to make a habit of marking his body like this, that was more than all right with David.

He got back into bed, and even in his sleep, Patrick seemed to sense the change, spooning up against David’s back once again. Just as David was drifting off to sleep again, he felt Patrick’s hips shift, and his erection pressed directly against the crease of David’s ass. Suddenly he was wide awake again.

David cleared his throat. “You awake?”

Patrick hummed, his hand sliding around to come to rest on David’ chest, his mouth on David’s shoulder. “Yeah.” His voice was deeper than usual, and raspy, and it sent a thrill up David’s spine. “What time is it?”

“7:15.”

Patrick’s hips shifted again, more purposefully this time, and arousal flooded David’s system. “I like waking up with you,” Patrick murmured.

“Well, enjoy it now, because I don’t know if there will be that many opportunities back home.”

“If you can put up with Ray’s chattiness, you can stay over with me sometimes. He won’t mind.” Patrick thrust his hips again, and David’s hand shot down to clutch at Patrick’s thigh. 

“Is this okay?” Patrick said, his hips finding a rhythm.

“Very okay.” David reached out and clawed at the bedside table until he found the lube and he handed it back to Patrick. 

“Oh,” Patrick said, stilling. “I’m not sure I’m ready to—”

“Oh… no.” David turned and looked back at him. “I’m not ready for anal either at seven in the morning. Just… it’ll make what you were doing feel even better.”

“Right, of course.” Patrick blushed and flipped open the cap, squeezing some into his palm before handing it back to David. When he pressed himself back up against David’s ass and moved, the slick sensation of it made both of them groan. Then Patrick reached around with the same hand and wrapped his fingers around David’s cock.

“Fuck, yes,” David panted, as Patrick sped up his thrusts and his hand and David very nearly started to weep with how good it felt. Then Patrick’s teeth sank into his shoulder and David found himself on the edge of coming ridiculously quickly. If he’d known when they met that Patrick was capable of completely wrecking him like this, he might have thrown himself at him right there in Ray’s front room.

David gripped the edge of the bed, trying to ground himself to something, and rode out the intense pulsing bliss of his orgasm, his voice doing things that he was certain to be embarrassed about later. Patrick followed shortly afterwards, swearing and grinding against David until he finally slowed and stopped, his breath humid on David’s overheated skin.

“I don’t know how we’re going to keep our hands off each other in the store now,” Patrick said, kissing David’s shoulder. “All I’ll be able to think about is this.”

“Well, you just give me a signal, and we can lock the door and test drive that old sofa in the back room,” David said, finally peeling himself away from Patrick and grimacing. “Okay, I need a shower in the worst way.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Patrick said. 

“Umm.” David rolled onto his back, because fuck the sheets, it’s not like he (or Stevie for that matter) would have to wash them. “You deserve as many mind-blowing orgasms as you can survive, to make up for lost time. So please don’t apologize.” He pulled Patrick in with a hand on his neck and kissed him.

Patrick smiled against his lips. “As I can _survive_?”

“Well, if this is what sex with you is like _now_ , imagine what it’s going to be like once we really get to know each other’s bodies.”

They kissed again, long and slow. “I can’t wait to find out,” Patrick said.

_______________

**_Alexis_ **

“Have you heard from them today?” Stevie asked Alexis as soon as she arrived at the store to work their Sunday afternoon shift.

Alexis pouted. “No, I was hoping you had.”

Stevie shook her head. “I texted Patrick this morning but I didn’t get a response.” She went in the back and came out shortly afterward with the spray mister for the vegetables. 

“So nothing at all since you sent him that excellent to-do list?” Stevie and Alexis had been at the store together during Stevie’s text exchange with Patrick the day before, and Alexis had read the whole thing over Stevie’s shoulder, offering her own commentary on what Stevie should text back.

“Not a word. Hopefully he was too _busy_ ,” Stevie said, setting the spray bottle down so that she could make a loose fist with one hand and stick her other finger through the resulting hole. 

“Ew, that’s my brother you’re talking about,” Alexis said, but then she grinned and reached out to slap hands with Stevie. After a moment of hesitation, she got an anemic high five from David’s best friend.

A few hours went by with a steady stream of customers. When the store’s proprietors finally arrived, Alexis was so focused on upselling a woman on shampoo that she didn’t notice David and Patrick coming into the store until David was practically on top of her, looking around like he expected her to have rearranged his merchandise just to mess with him. Which, now that she thought of it, would have been fun and she was disappointed that hadn’t occurred to her until now.

“Your store was in perfectly capable hands, David, so don’t start,” Alexis said as the customer carried her purchases over to Patrick and Stevie at the register.

“I wasn’t starting anything,” he said. “Thank you for looking after the store this weekend, Alexis; I appreciate it.”

Shocked at his sincere gratitude, Alexis paused and really examined her brother. He definitely had a pleased look on his face, like he’d read something in the news about Oprah. “You guys are together now, aren’t you?” she whispered.

David fluttered his eyelashes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The customer dispensed with, Patrick disappeared into the back of the store, and David began busying himself with obsessively straightening the displays. Alexis shot Stevie a look, but Stevie just shrugged.

Patrick emerged after a few minutes with a bottle of wine in each hand, which he held out to Stevie. “Thank you.”

Stevie’s eyes went wide as she accepted the bottles. “Did you check everything off of the list, then?”

Patrick blushed, scratching the back of his neck. “I, um, did.”

“Oh, yay, Patrick! Yay!” Alexis said, clapping her hands together. 

Patrick looked even more embarrassed. “Alexis knows about the list?” he asked Stevie.

David looked up. “What list?”

“Look, we worked a long day at _your_ store yesterday, Patrick. We needed something to entertain ourselves with,” Stevie said. “Also, I think I deserve more than two bottles.”

“What the fuck are you all talking about?” David asked, more visibly annoyed now.

“Nothing, David,” Alexis said, “It’s just, Stevie and I were noticing how there used to be so much tension in the store when you guys were both here, but now it’s all, like, relaxed and chill.”

“Consummated, you might even say,” Stevie said.

Patrick walked over to David and put his hands on David’s waist. “Ignore them. Do you want to come over later?”

David’s lips quirked in a half-smile, and he nodded. “Mm hmm.”

Leaning up, Patrick kissed David on the lips. “Good.”

This time when Alexis held up her hand for a high five, Stevie’s hand met hers with enthusiasm.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me [on tumblr](http://unfolded73.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] I Like You Enough to Stay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28518111) by [Amanita_Fierce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanita_Fierce/pseuds/Amanita_Fierce)




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